A blog maintained by the team working to hold
oil giant Chevron accountable for its human rights
and environmental abuses in Ecuador

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Wednesday, October 16, 2013

On the very second
morning of the trial in Chevron's retaliatory RICO suit, one of the oil giant's
star witnesses dropped a bombshell.

And the star witness—Chevron's own Ricardo Reis Vega, the
company's vice president who oversaw its legal defense in the Ecuador
case—dropped that bombshell on another of Chevron's star witnesses.

With the courtroom packed with people who mostly already
knew about the incident, the major revelation drew little response except some
frantic scribbling in notebooks and whispering in the dark suited, shoulder to
shoulder Chevron seating section.

For those of you who haven't been closely following the
tortuous grind of this case, Reis Veiga's admission is substantial and
eviscerates the credibility of the witness Chevron is relying on to support its
most explosive—and ridiculous—allegations in the case.

Reis Vega was asked
if he had personal knowledge that in 2009, the disgraced former judge in the case in Ecuador,
Alberto Guerra, approached Chevron, promising to "fix the
case."

Reis
Vega replied, simply, "Yes, I do."

Chevron is promising that Judge Guerra—who the company
admits offered to "fix the case", will be its star witness in
Chevron's trial. He is expected to say that the Ecuadorian Plaintiffs' legal
team offered to bribe judges, an outrageous claim they vigorously deny. Judge Guerra who has in fact been paid more
than $325,000 by Chevron, in some cases by lawyers toting suitcases in cash. Who is bribing whom?

While this all sounds hyperbolic; unfortunately it is not,
and will be corroborated soon enough in court.